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Eastern Conference playoff race

NBA Commentary: Assessing Brooklyn As A Playoff Threat

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The Brooklyn Nets are on a collision course with the Miami Heat if the current standings in the Eastern Conference hold up. The Nets’ 42-31 record is good for #4 in the East, which would make them the favorite to play the Heat in the second round. Furthermore, in a world where we’re looking for anyone at all who can make Miami sweat out a playoff series prior to the Finals, Brooklyn is getting some attention.

Today’s NBA commentary will focus on the Nets’ strengths and weaknesses, and evaluate whether they are the kind of playoff-tough team that can first, win a series, and second, put pressure on the favorite.

Brooklyn has legitimate star talent and in the NBA that’s always the first thing you look for. The backcourt of Deron Williams and Joe Johnson, combined with the inside work of center Brook Lopez, give the Nets a foundation on which to build a championship-caliber team. They already play at a high level on the offensive end. Johnson and Williams combine for 34 points per game, they shoot a respectable 37% from three-point range, while Lopez gets 19 ppg in the low post. There’s not much in the way of scoring balance, but this core trio is enough to make Brooklyn a top ten team in offensive efficiency.

What the Nets lack is scoring depth—or really, any kind of depth at all. Gerald Wallace is a disappointment at the small forward spot, Kris Humphries hasn’t provided much of anything off the bench, and Keith Bogans is a mediocre backup guard. The most you can say for the bench or the role players offensively is that C.J. Watson hits 40 percent of his three-point shots.

Furthermore, this team does not play efficient defense. Brooklyn ranks just 19th in the NBA in defensive efficiency. Opposing teams don’t bother messing around with the three-ball—the Nets face fewer attempts than all but two teams, which suggest the opposition is very comfortable working the offense inside the arc. The numbers suggest the strategy is working, and that shouldn’t happen when you have a shotblocker like Lopez as the anchor. Brooklyn likely needs some new complementary players, who understand the defensive side of the floor much better.

What Brooklyn does do very well is pound the boards though. Reggie Evans starts at power forward and has pulled in 10 rebounds a game. Andray Blatche comes off the bench and does the same thing. Put these two together with Lopez and you have a team that’s tied for second in the league in rebounding. It’s admirable, and it also underscores the need for better defense—when you can clean up misses like this team can, you’ve got to start forcing more of them.

Brooklyn’s star power, combined with their inconsistency on defense, would seem to make them a team that could both beat or lose to anyone. At least in the month of March, that was not the case. This team was in fact, quite predictable. They lost most of their road games to playoff teams—Denver, Utah, LA Clippers, Chicago, and took care of the games they were supposed to win. Brooklyn split a pair with Atlanta, although in this case it was the road team winning each time. Even though the Nets only went 8-7 for the month, they held steady in the #4 spot, a seed that would get them homecourt advantage in the first round.

The three games played against the Bulls and Hawks were instructive, and not just because these are the two teams directly on their heels in the standings (both are two back of Brooklyn in the loss column coming into Wednesday’s games). Brooklyn lost to Atlanta on March 17 in spite of a huge rebounding night from the team as a whole, and Evans in particular, because they allowed the Hawks to shoot 52 percent from the floor. The Bulls did the same in their victory early in the month. When Brooklyn got a win in Atlanta, they didn’t dominate the glass, but they did hold the Hawks to 42 percent shooting. There’s a lesson in there somewhere and it has something to do with defense.

Until the Nets get either more talented on defense, or take it with a greater seriousness, I can’t give them any reasonable chance against Miami—we’ll define “reasonable chance” as saying they could be expected to take a series to a sixth game, which would give them a chance to win at home and force a Game 7. I’m not there with Brooklyn yet. You won’t compete with Miami being soft on the defensive end. It’s more pertinent to ask how they’d match up with the Hawks or Bulls, and while I’m not yet sure who I’d pick in such a series, the lack of defensive skill bothers me here too.

What doesn’t bother me is Brooklyn’s long-term potential. The hardest thing to do in the NBA is to get a core group that can win a championship together and the Nets have that. It’s up to the front office and coaching staff to get the right complementary pieces in place, but the future is bright for the season-ticket holders at the Barclays Center.

THE EASTERN CONFERENCE PLAYOFF PICTURE

Miami has the #1 seed  officially clinched and is closing in on the best overall record. New York and Indiana are in a tough fight for the 2-3 spots in the bracket, but both are assured of going opposite Miami. The next three would be the Brooklyn/Chicago/Atlanta group. Probably the worst spot to finish in that race is second and the #5 seed—you don’t get homecourt and you don’t get to go opposite Miami. At the bottom, the Celtics are struggling and barely holding on to #7, a game ahead of Milwaukee in the loss column, as both teams look to avoid the Heat in the first round.

 

 

New York Knicks’ Lin-Sanity Craze Likely To Continue

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I’ve finally given up on trying to avoid the Lin-Sanity craze sweeping the NBA, and today TheSportsNotebook is going to take a closer look at the New York Knicks hot streak behind their new point guard Jeremy Lin. Is it the real thing? Is it a contrived media story because Lin’s in New York? Is it a mix of both? We’ll dive into the Knicks, looking first at their overall team profile and then what’s been different during the Lin-driven seven-game win streak.

New York is a team that wins with its offense, a fact not readily apparent when you just glance at the point averages. They’re 13th in both points scored and allowed, but if you use the offensive and defensive efficiency rankings, which adjust for tempo, you find New York is an upper-crust offensive team and a subpar defensive one. Rebounding is a huge problem, when they’re one of the worst in the NBA.

When you look at the team’s personnel the impression that, pre-Lin, this was a club basically defined by Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudamire at the forward spots, is essentially accurate. Tyson Chandler was the next-best player at center, a double-double man each night, but the backcourt was a big problem. Prior to the recent win streak, they had no one who could hit three-point shots with any consistency and the backcourt in general was a mess.

Just looking at the team overall, we can already understand why Lin was able to make such an immediate impact. He was stepping into a lineup which had a huge hole at point guard. When Anthony and Stoudamire both missed time with nagging injuries, the opportunity existed for Lin to step up and score.

When February began, the Knicks lost close games to Chicago and Boston, the first at home to a Bulls team missing Luol Deng, and then on the road in the Garden (for the record, Boston’s arena is the only one on this site to be referred to as “The Garden”. New York’s home is referenced as “MSG”). The team played well in Boston, before losing by two. Then the ascent began.

Lin stepped into the lineup at home against the Nets and the team won 99-92 because they beat Jersey to the boards. While Lin scored 25, give kudos to Jared Jeffries who came off the bench for ten rebounds. Up next was a home win over Utah, where the Knicks found the range from treyland—specifically throw 6’10” forward Steve Novak who came off the bench and nailed five. Novak did the same thing in Washington, again giving the Knicks a big edge from behind the arc. Through it all, Lin continued to get 20-plus a night.

That set up a Friday night in MSG against the Lakers. The opponent was coming off a one-point win the Garden a night earlier, but Kobe Bryant still had a 34 point/10 rebound night. Lin answered with a 38-point blitzing that effectively carried New York to a win.

Consecutive road wins In Minnesota and Toronto followed. Lin got his 20-plus each game, but don’t overlook that Novak nailed four treys in the two-point win over the Wolves, while Stoudamire came back and got a 21/9 in Toronto. Last night in a home win over Sacramento, Lin toned down the scoring, but dished thirteen assists, and Novak scored 14 off the bench.

While Lin is obviously the driving force behind this win streak, let’s not overlook Novak. Like the new point guard, Novak has stepped into an area that was previously barren—three-points shooting—and given the team a sudden burst of production. Let’s also not overlook how friendly the schedule has been during the whole time, with a tired Laker team being the best opposition and the top teams after that being Utah and Minnesota. If you believe in the Knicks, are you comfortable with continuing to rely on Novak to provide your three-point production? Because there’s no one else with an outside shot worthy of the name. The best after that is Bill Walker, whose 33 percent from behind the arc make him good enough to want to take shots from better players, not good enough to be a real force. If you want outside shooting, it’s Novak or make a trade.

That’s the skeptic in me, which can’t get past the understated role Novak has played, along with the schedule. The believer in me looks at the Laker game and sees something beyond the surface. In his fine book The Book Of Basketball, Bill Simmons talks about the “alpha-dog” factor in looking at NBA stars. Was this the kind of player that if you were picking teams on the playground you would feel compelled to choose, if only because you didn’t want to tick him off. Lin stepping it up with 38 against the Lakers for a Friday night ESPN audience suggests an alpha-dog quality.

So what to make of it all? I think Lin’s emergence into the point guard spot is real enough to pass the first test—which is that New York is now indisputably better than Milwaukee or Cleveland and that as of February 16 we know who the eight playoff teams in the East will be. Does Lin make New York better than Boston or Indiana, who stand in their way of the #6 seed and avoiding Chicago/Miami in the first round? Does Lin make New York good enough to win a first-round series against the likes of a Philadelphia? Does Lin make New York good enough to stand toe-to-toe with the Bulls or Heat in the spring?

I think the answer to the first question is yes and the second answer is probably. Ultimately it depends less on Lin than on Anthony, and how well the injured star meshes in the new lineup when he gets back, which could be tomorrow against New Orleans. If all goes well, New York absolutely can first move up to #6 and then knock somebody off in a playoff series.

As to the Chicago/Miami question, I don’t want to get carried away, but I think there’s at least a one-in-three shot that New York could stand at least toe-to-toe with the heavyweights—as in take a series a minimum of six games, while splitting the first four, effectively making it a competitive series. Why not? They have legit star power in Melo and Stoudamire, they’ve got as shotblocker and rebounder in Chandler and now they have a point guard.

Lin doesn’t need to score 20 a night once Anthony is back. He just needs to dish the assists. I think he can do that. So I guess, in spite of my reluctance to get on a New York-media craze, I guess I’m a believer.

The Boston Celtics Are Red-Hot: Is It For Real?

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On January 20, the Boston Celtics hit their low point. They lost at home to a bad Phoenix team and fell to 5-9 on the season. General manager Danny Ainge was talking openly about trading any of the team’s Big Three—Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen—who’d won one championship together in 2008 and been to the Finals together in 2010. It seemed as though the only question left was whether the Celtics could even make the playoffs, as they were in a four-team joust with Cleveland, Milwaukee and New York for the final two spots in the eight-team Eastern Conference bracket. Then things changed. Since January 20, Boston has won nine of their last ten. The SportsNotebook takes a look at how they’ve done it and what the odds are of sustainability.

Before we go into the specifics of this ten-game run, let’s first briefly summarize how the team overall is put together. The backcourt is considered one of the team’s big strengths with Rajon Rondo, the cornerstone of the future at point guard, and Allen considered the most viable of any of the Big Three in trade talks, for his continued ability to hit the trey. Pierce is at small forward at the #1 option offensively. Garnett is at power forward, still able to rebound and hit the 15-20 foot jumper, even though his age does slow him down.

Center has been a problem, with Jermaine O’Neal really not stepping up to fill the bill, and averaging just 5 points/5 rebounds per night. Brandon Bass, a 6’8” power forward was added to strengthen the bench and he’s done a nice job with an 11/6 nightly average. A pleasant surprise has been the addition of small forward Mickael Pietrus from France, who’s chipped in 8 ppg off the bench and has a respectable shot, both inside and outside the arc. The Celts need help at center both in the starting lineup and off the bench, and are hoping rookie JaJuan Johnson can step up, while depth in the backcourt is a concern, with Avery Bradley, Marquise Daniels and E’Twaun Moore all hoping to fill the playing time available behind Rondo and Allen.

The win streak started quietly on January 22 in Washington D.C. With most of the Boston area thinking about the AFC Championship Game that would kick off three hours later, the Celtics beat the Wizards 100-94 because Pierce essentially put the team on his back and carried them, with 34 points/8 rebounds and 10 assists. Rondo was injured and hit the bench, while Allen was held to seven points. Garnett stepped it up with 17.  When Allen sprained his ankle and joined Rondo on the bench though, it hardly seemed as though a trend was beginning.

But the formula of Pierce carrying the load and Garnett playing well took hold and in back-to-back games against Orlando it looks like the Celtics might have swung two seasons in different directions. On January 23, Pietrus joined Rondo and Allen on the bench, but the Celts played ferocious team defense in the Garden and held the Magic to 25 percent shooting in a blowout win. Three nights later in the rematch on the road, the Celts won the fourth quarter 27-8 in a stunning come-from-behind win. In the two games, Pierce combined for a 43/11/17 line, with those 17 assists marking real leadership as he shared the basketball even with two starters out of the lineup. Garnett delivered a 26/20 effort in both games combined. Orlando, who had been playing good basketball coming in, even amidst the Dwight Howard trade talks, has come back to the pack and has Boston right on its heels in the race for playoff seeding.

The C’s flew back home to face a good Indiana team, that team president Larry Bird—a man with some credibility in Beantown—says is a group he likes as much as any he’s had there (and Bird did coach a Pacers team to the 2000 NBA Finals). Pierce had a monster game at 28/10/8, Garnett was solid in support, and the defense held Indiana to 35 percent shooting. It set up another back-to-back, with two games against the Cavs in three days. The first one in Boston was the one loss of this string, as Cleveland closed the game with twelve straight points and stole an 88-87 win. On a positive note, it marked Allen’s return to the lineup and he scored 22 points. Ultimately, the defense got a little soft, as the Cavs shot 52 percent from the floor. Back in Cleveland though, Pierce answered with another refuse-to-lose effort, scoring 20 and helping the Celts answer with a 93-90 win.

As the calendar turned to February, Boston took full advantage of a date with lowly Toronto and hung a 100-64 thrashing on the Raptors, with another strong defensive outing. Then last Friday, in a great game before an ESPN audience, the Celtics nipped the Knicks at home 91-89, thanks to a heroic effort from Pierce, who hung 30 points on a New York team playing uncharacteristically well, and looking like the club a lot of us expected to see when the season began. In the big picture, what’s really important is that Rondo returned to the lineup and handed out seven assists.

On Sunday, hours before the Super Bowl kickoff, the Celtics helped New Englanders feel as though this might be their day, with a 98-80 pummeling of a talented Memphis team that’s trying to get its own chemistry going. It was Pierce, Garnett and good team defense delivering the goods. If the sports day could have ended right there, all of Boston would have gone to bed Sunday night happy. Then yesterday, a lousy Charlotte team was beaten 94-84 with good lineup balance, as the Core Four (Rondo plus the Big Three) combined for 64 points.

So is this sustainable or are the Celtics just the flavor of the month right now? Obviously they won’t win 90 percent of their games, but they’ve shifted the conversation away from whether they can make the playoffs, to whether they can succeed in the playoffs.

The fact they’re playing better team defense is consistent with the team’s past success. The fact they did it without Rondo for almost the entire stretch and without Allen for at least half of it and had to rely on a backcourt bench that’s the team’s biggest weaknesses, suggests this wasn’t a case of everything just clicking at the right time. It’s realistic to expect Pierce to continue to lead the way, and even if Garnett goes through stretches where he needs rest or struggles, the team has Allen back to pick up the slack in scoring and Rondo to create better shots for everyone.

On the flip side, you will notice that none of the opponents in that stretch were all that remarkable. Orlando and Cleveland were the best two teams, and I’m literally starting to smirk as I type the word “Cleveland.” Sorry, I lived in Pittsburgh for nine years of my life and can’t help but laugh at the rival city to the west. Now back to our topic—this schedule’s going to get a lot tougher.

Boston hosts the LA Lakers on Thursday night. On Sunday they’ve got the Bulls. Next Thursday (Feb 16), they make a return trip to Chicago. On Monday, February 20 they’re at Dallas. Two nights later they’re in Oklahoma City. Pierce and one supporting player aren’t going to be enough to win these games. They need the Core Four hitting on all cylinders and probably one role player kicking in some quality help, be it with scoring, defense or some rebounds.

There are three levels of success for Boston right now—the first is to make the playoffs. The second is to have success, which can be defined as getting into the top six, avoiding Chicago/Miami in the first round and winning a playoff series. The third level is having a real shot at beating the Bulls & Heat, which in turn means they can win the NBA Finals again.

To keep themselves on the first level of success, Boston really needs to worry more about the games in this stretch against Toronto, Detroit (twice) and Cleveland, and just take care of business. If they can steal a win in the tough five-game stretch in addition to that, they’re still in nice position for second-level success. But if they’re really going to make a push at the leaders, they need to win at least two, and probably three of those big games, in addition to sweeping the easier four.

I’m not ready to say the Celts are ready to reach the highest level, but what they’ve done in the last ten games is sustainable enough for me to say they are again second-level—top six in the East with winning a playoff series as a realistic goal.  I know this franchise expects more, but it’s a long way from way they were on January 20.

The Pittsburgh Penguins: Is There Life After Crosby?

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Pittsburgh Penguins’ star Sidney Crosby doesn’t look to be any closer to re-taking the ice due to recurring problems with a concussion. Could the Penguins make a run at duplicating their back-to-back runs to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2008-09, including a championship the latter season, without their top dog? It’s hard to see how, but the Penguins closed January on a tear, winning eight straight games. Even though they’ve dropped two of the last three, those have all been on the road and the win was a not-as-close-as-it-sounds 2-1 win in Boston. TheSportsNotebook goes inside the win streak to see if it’s sustainable.

The Penguins are an overall fundamentally sound team that does everything pretty well, from scoring to defending, to the power play to executing in normal 5-on-5 situations. If there’s an area they really stand out it’s the ability to get shots and prevent the same, ranking second in the NHL in both categories. The flip side of that stat is that there’s question marks about how good the shots are, if they’re not corresponding to goals (where Pittsburgh is seventh), or if there’s a lack of a true finisher to make them count—i.e., Crosby. And defensively, we have to look at goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury and note that while 10th in the 30-team NHL is fine for goals against, shouldn’t he be doing better, consider how good a defense led by Kris Letang and Brooks Orpik are at keeping him from being besieged by pucks?

Evgeni Malkin went a long way to answering the question regarding the offense. Malkin is at center, and would get my vote for the MVP if we had to pick today, with 29 goals and 32 assists. In the eight-game winning streak Malkin put the team on his back and invited them along for the ride. He scored at least one goal in all eight games. In a January 15 win at Tampa it was a hat trick. He won two games in the shootout session. On January 19 Malkin went to Madison Square Garden and scored twice against the East-leading New York Rangers. One of his shootout wins came one day later at Montreal, where the center created the shootout by scoring the game-tying goal in the third period. Back home against Washington, Malkin scored a conventional overtime goal to beat the Capitals, after having dished two assists in regulation. The month closed on January 31, when the Penguins rallied from 4-1 down against an otherwise hot Toronto team, scoring three goals in the final twelve minutes, the last by Malkin.

What I took a paragraph to describe can be summed up in one sentence—Evgeni Malkin is carrying the Penguins.

But how far can he carry the team? In fairness to his teammates, James Neal is an excellent supporting piece, a good scorer and assist man in his own right on the left wing, and when Neal is off the ice, Pascal Dupuis and Chris Kunitz are respectable third and fourth-line contributors. But there’s not much on the right win and even in the win streak, the goaltending still raised red flags. To be sure, Fleury had his moments, but when I have to describe this many instances of the center bailing the team with third-period and overtime heroics, doesn’t that say something about the quality of the goaltending? Can you imagine someone like Tim Thomas (Boston), Henrik Lundqvist (New York) or Jimmy Howard (Detroit) putting their team’s best players in that situation?

The flip side of all this is with the Penguins consistently winning the battles for shots, they’re giving their goalie every opportunity to get hot. They’ve won the Cup with Fleury in goal before, so it can be done, but the pressure is on not only Malkin and Neal, but also defenseman Letang and Orpik to keep winning the battles between the nets and hope for the best from their goalie.

SAME STORY IN CHICAGO

Chicago’s got a similar profile to Pittsburgh—some great scorers, good overall team, but being dragged down by the goalie. The difference is that the Blackhawks take it to an even greater extreme, and they’ve also been in a slump, having dropped five straight.

While the Blackhawks have an even deeper offensive cast than the Penguins, with center Jonathan Toewes and right-wingers Patrick Kane and Marian Hossa, they’re 5-on-5 play is a little worse than Pittsburgh, and their penalty-kill is atrocious. But in fairness to defenseman Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook, it makes more sense to put the blame on instability in the net. Because while the Blackhawks are a lowly 26th in goals allowed, they’re 11th in shots allowed. Now it’s about whether Corey Crawford and Ray Emery can step up and be consistent between the pipes.

If you go through Chicago’s five-game losing streak what stands out is that four of them were on the road, so we don’t want to overreact. But they have not gotten power play opportunities and as a result the offense has been mostly quiet, save for a loss in Edmonton when a complete goalie meltdown caused an 8-4 loss. Chicago does not play at a championship level in the conventional 5-on-5 game. When you rely on the power play for your offense, and can’t stop the other team from doing the same, you’re akin to a college basketball team that goes on the road knowing it needs a favorably officiated game to win. Would you feel confident about such a team?

The losing streak will straighten itself out. Toews has been dealing with an illness and even though he’s logging his minutes, it’s surely not helping. And while they’re on the road tonight, it’s a manageable spot in Colorado, and eventually they’ll get more games in the United Center. But this team’s flaws in basic 5-on-5 play and on the penalty kill have been exposed in these last five games and they won’t keep up with Detroit and red-hot Nashville if this continues.

 

Milwaukee & Cleveland Put Up A Fight In The NBA East

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The NBA’s Eastern Conference is marked by a steep drop-off after the top six teams, creating a tight race among mediocre teams for the final two playoff berths. And situated right in between well-publicized Eastern teams in Boston and New York, are small-market hubs in Milwaukee and Cleveland. Each team is coming off a big weekend win, with the Cavs beating the Celtics in the Garden last night, and the Bucks knocking off the Lakers at home on Saturday. Milwaukee and Cleveland are each 8-11 and tied for the 8th spot in the East. Today, TheSportsNotebook takes a closer look at both.

Milwaukee: I’m going through the Bucks first, because they’re the least likely of the two to keep this going. Andrew Bogut, their 7-foot center, is absolutely critical to their success and he’s now out indefinitely with an ankle injury. Bogut is not a superstar, with an 11 points/8 rebounds per game average, but he at least gave the team a low post presence. Now a bench, which wasn’t deep on the frontline to begin with, is going to worn thin. The inside burden will fall to power forward Drew Gooden, who is a poor man’s Bogut, and 24-year old Ersan Ilyasova, who now has the chance to make a name for himself.

Brandon Jennings is the star of the show under any circumstances and the point guard averages 20 ppg. At 23, Jennings is set to become a fixture in the league for a long time and it remains to be seen if the Bucks can get the talent in place to keep him happy and in town. His running mate is Stephen Jackson, a non-descript performer at age 33 who shouldn’t be in the starting lineup of any team with playoff aspirations. Mike Dunleavy Jr. plays the small forward spot and averages 10 a night, but shoots sub-40 percent from the floor.

Ultimately shooting is a big problem for this team. The Bucks have no one whose reliable as a three-point gunner. Jackson and Dunleavy should be fined if they ever launch a three-ball and while Jennings’ 35 percent is acceptable, it’s a real problem when he’s your best option. In fact in general, it’s a basketball truism that your point guard shouldn’t have to be your lead option when it comes to taking shots. Jennings clearly is for Milwaukee, so if that truism is accurate, it’s a big problem for this team. For the record, I’m not sure if I buy into theory completely, but I see the logic behind it, and it certainly applies in a case like this where there’s simply no other good options besides Jennings.

Now that I’ve carved up the Milwaukee personnel let’s take a look at some positives and it starts with the bottom line. They’ve won four of their last six and it’s not because the schedule got easy. In addition to the Lakers, Milwaukee won on the road at improving Houston, they won the road at New York—which admittedly is not a tough game, but it’s a team the Bucks have to beat out if they’re going to make the playoffs—and they won at Miami. The losses were more than respectable, coming to Atlanta and on the road in Chicago.

The reason is defense. Head coach Scott Skiles is doing a terrific job at getting this team to play together defensively, and they’re 4th in the league in defensive efficiency. How much of that can be sustained without Bogut is another question, but give the coaching staff some props and give the players high marks for effort.

Coming up this week, Milwaukee has to show they can take care of business against the dregs of the East, when they play two games against the Pistons, including a home date tonight. They’ve also got considerably tougher home games with Miami and Chicago.

Cleveland: The Cavs are the mirror image of the Bucks. While Milwaukee looks terrible on paper, but puts it together with defense, Cleveland looks pretty decent when you go player-by-player, but they are not getting it done on the defensive end.

Kyrie Irving, the 19-year old point guard from Duke who went first in last June’s draft, has lived up to his press clippings, averaging 18 ppg and being a viable three-point threat. I’d like to see more assists from Irving, but at 5 apg he’s not bad, and as his supporting cast improves, the assist numbers surely will too.

Irving is joined in the backcourt by veteran Anthony Parker, a regular on the best teams this franchise had in the LeBron Years, but at age 36, he’s nursing back problems and hasn’t produced all that much when healthy. Cleveland could use Daniel Gibson or Ramon Sessions to really stand up and claim this job, but so far neither has distinguished themselves.

The forward spots are in steady hands. 35-year old Antwan Jamison can still score, and he has the ability to step out and hit from downtown, giving Irving an added weapon off penetration. Jamison is joined by 6’11” Anderson Varejao, averaging a double-double per night. Where Cleveland is lacking is that no true center draws any significant playing time.

Cleveland’s bounced back well from a tough mid-January stretch where they lost games to Chicago, Atlanta and Miami, and they win at Boston has the chance to be a signature moment for this team. The Celts make a return trip to Cleveland on Tuesday night, an opportunity that will test the Cavs’ maturity. Can they make it two in a row against a team they need to beat? The schedule around the corner doesn’t get easier, with Orlando, Dallas, Miami and the LA Clippers coming up in succession.

In comparing the two teams, I like Milwaukee’s overall profile better because of the defense, but at this point in the season I think Cleveland has much better prospects moving forward. The individual talent suggests the opportunity is there for the team to gel, while the Bucks are already probably playing about as well as they possibly can. Cleveland’s still healthy, while Milwaukee is not.

If either team made the playoffs, it would make for a potential rivalry battle in the first round. Milwaukee could be paired up with Chicago. And I don’t know if the media would notice, but a Cleveland-Miami series would involve LeBron James taking on his former team. Sarcasm aside though, for both teams, just getting into the postseason would constitute a huge win in of itself and even winning a single game there would be even better.

Miami, Orlando & Atlanta Battle In The NBA’s Southeast Division

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The Miami Heat are getting plenty of competition in their own Southeast Division this year. Orlando and Atlanta are both off to strong starts and this trio is tightly backed within a game of each other. With each team getting either major TV spotlight or facing a key schedule stretch this week, TheSportsNotebook takes a look at how all three have started the season. The rank listed in parentheses is where they would be seeded in the eight-team Eastern Conference playoffs if the season ended today.

Miami (11-5, 6th): Surprised to see the Heat sitting as the #6 seed so far? Don’t be. There’s a huge gap from the six-spot down to the last two, so they’re more likely to be #1 by the end of this week than they are to be #7. Dwayne Wade’s ankle injury has been the key factor of this team’s early schedule. Wade is listed as day-to-day, but he has missed seven games so far and beyond the Big Three, Miami is notoriously lacking in depth.

Wade’s backup at the point is Norris Cole and while I realize being D-Wade’s water boy isn’t the most desirable gig in the NBA, couldn’t team president Pat Riley find someone a little more capable than this? There’s a lot of veteran names behind LeBron James and Chris Bosh at the forward spots, but there’s little in the way of production from Shane Battier, Udonis Haslem or Joel Anthony. The Heat lack a true center, so they’ve got to get more consistent play—at least in terms of rebounding from the 6’8” Haslem and the 6’9” Anthony. Bosh is a good rebounder, but at eight boards a game, he’s not reminding anyone of Moses Malone. It’s not that Bosh is having a bad year—to the contrary, he’s getting 21 ppg, but this overall landscape on the frontcourt smacks of a team not very well put together when it comes to the role players, and that has to fall at Riley’s feet.

LeBron himself is having a typical LBJ season, with 30 points/7 rebounds/8 assists per game, while Wade has gotten 20 ppg when healthy and Mario Challmes continues to be a threat from the three-point line at the two-guard spot. But the Heat either need to add more post man who clearly understand their roles and offer one definitive skill—maybe it’s shotblocking, maybe its rebounding—or they risk disappointment in the playoffs again. You can catch the Heat on national television (shocking, I know), on Friday at home against New York, and then Sunday for a big-time showdown with Chicago on ABC.

Atlanta (12-5, #5): Atlanta’s about where you expect them to be in the conference—headed for a 4-5 series in the first round, maybe winning it and then saying an uncompetitive goodbye in the conference semi-finals, which was the formula they followed last year. The Hawks are going to have to be without center Al Horford for, basically the rest of the regular season, which places the entire burden of the post on Josh Smith. The latter is the superior player, but a Horford/Smith tandem would have given this team a matchup edge that could have been exploited against Miami. As it is now, they have to lean even harder on the backcourt, led up by Joe Johnson, a superior scorer who averages 19 ppg and at 6’7” is a matchup nightmare for opposing guards.

The backcourt is good, with Jeff Teague doing a good job running the offense and he’s got a good shooting touch. Vladimir Radmanvoic is a big man who can step out and hit the three. I don’t mean to knock this team, because there’s absolutely nothing wrong with falling in the 4-5 slots and potentially winning a playoff series. In fact, it’s pretty good. But the talent on hand does suggest that any hope of pushing beyond that is wishful thinking at best. While the Hawks don’t play any one single game this week that’s really noteworthy, they do start a five-game stretch of road games at Milwaukee, San Antonio, Detroit, New Orleans and Toronto. Let’s see if they can win three of those five.

Orlando (11-4, 2nd): Tell me again, why does Dwight Howard want out of here so badly? He’s in a good city, great weather and he’s on a good team. He’s already been to the Finals, so he knows they can win. And there’s a chance to do it again this year. But say this for Howard—whatever his issues are with the organization, he’s staying focused on business, putting up a 20/16 line on a nightly basis. He’s still the anchor of a frontcourt that is very well put together. Ryan Anderson averages 17 ppg and at 6’10” he grabs rebounds and hits three-point shots. Hedo Turkoglu is another 6’10” forward who can play the finesse game, ably scoring and sharing the ball. The acquisition of Glen Davis from Boston was a coup, as “Big Baby” is ideal coming off the bench for some instant energy and he understands his role. The Magic have one of the NBA’s best frontcourts, one that can score, rebound, distribute and block shots all in one fell swoop.

Where the problem comes is in the backcourt. Jameer Nelson runs the offense well enough to make sure all the other talent doesn’t bog down, but he’s not a scorer, and he’s a mediocre shooter. J. J. Redick is a nice role player, but a team with championship aspirations should have him coming off the bench for some occasional three-point shooting. Jason Richardson is the one who needs to play better. At 6’6”, he has the proto-type size for a two-guard, but has to shoot more accurately if Orlando is going to keep this pace going.

With the Magic riding high at second in the East, they’re one of the NBA’s good stories early on, and you can catch them on TV tonight at Boston (7:30 PM EST, NBA-TV) and again on Thursday when the Celtics make a return visit (8 PM ET, TNT). In between they play a tougher game at Indiana on Tuesday night, get the Pacers back home on Sunday and in the midst of all that squeeze in a trip to New Orleans on Friday. Oh, and Monday? A trip to Philadelphia, another team playing as well as anyone. Tough schedule, but that’s the pace of life in this compressed NBA schedule.